War Is Hell
by MassEffectMaster
Summary: A story that describes what happened to Commander Shepard at, and after Torfan.


So I just wanted to get this out for a while now. Read and review please!

"Oh look, the king of the boy scouts has arrived to save me from myself!"

"You always say this whenever I come down, then you talk with me just like I want you to, it makes me think you're just putting on a show for yourself."

Silence reigned before Jack responded more calmly, "When you've seen the kind of shit I have, you put up a shell around yourself. So you can just go fuck yourself if you're gonna judge me for that!"

Shepard pinched his nose and sighed, "I'm not going to judge you… why do you have to respond like that every time as well? It's like our little meetings are scripted."

"We always begin with friction because we're two entirely different people, you're king of the boy scouts, I'm a criminal."

"Yeah, well I wasn't always 'king of the boy scouts', as you so politely put it. Things used to be…" Shepard drifted into reminiscence and stared off into the distance.

Jack scoffed and glared at Shepard, "I doubt that, what's the worst thing you ever did, tip a waiter less than he deserved? You've led a privileged life."

Shepard shot a worried look at Jack, "A series of things I'm not proud of. I was born into privilege, but that's not how my life turned out."

"You haven't answered my question."

Shepard sighed yet again, "Okay, I'll give you the abridged version."

* * *

It was silent, save for the humming in the air from the mass effect field generator. Without it, a batarian surprise attack could destroy the camp. The dense air on Torfan was annoying as hell, but it still tolerable. What was much less tolerable was the unbearable heat of its three suns beating down on the dark brick red land. The sky was a dark brown and night was rapidly approaching.

Suddenly, a buzz picked up across the perimeter and the men and women present began to arm themselves.

"Batarians moving, sir?"

"Yes, Lieutenant Shepard I'll need you heading up Squad Bravo, I'll take Alpha, and 2nd Lieutenant Bogdanov will command Charlie, and we'll nail those batarian bastards.

A sick grin rose across Shepard's face, "I'll make sure not a single god damn one will be able to tell who just slit their throats."

Without another word being exchanged, Shepard vanished quickly and quietly.

"Well well well, you finally showed up. We were waiting for you, Lieutenant." Henry piped up.

"Shut your mouth you smarmy bastard."

Henry recoiled slightly, "Wow. You're coming in hot."

Akane whispered loudly in Henry's ear as Shepard marched away, "He's been waiting for this day for two years, don't antagonize him or he just might shoot you."

"I wouldn't be surprised. Did you hear what he did at Truceff? I hear he murdered fifty batarians with a machete!"

"I heard that on Arteck he broke free from a batarian holding cell and killed every single person there before escaping!"

"The man's a raving lunatic, he'll get us all killed!"

"He's not a raving lunatic, but I'll tell you what he is: a fucking psychopath, as well as a sociopath. He feels no remorse, no sadness; he just wants to kill batarians."

"I heard that after what he did on Elysium, the batarians call him The Bloody Devil in their language.

"We can't let this guy lead us into a firefight! Like I said before, he'll kill us all!"

"Your life depends on your ability to fight, maybe if would all stop gossiping and start preparing, maybe this would end with less holes in you all." Shepard's comment quickly dispersed the group of people and placed them at their stations, preparing to move out.

"Alright, just past this flatland lies a batarian bunker. When we're done I don't want to see one prisoner, one scientist, one bastard who claims he's a double agent alive. When we clear that place I don't want to see a single goddamn thing but batarian corpses, do I make myself clear?"

The eight men and women under him made various sounds indicating to the affirmative, and then they followed as Shepard began to walk across the red land to the batarian bunker.

They all followed suite, and they all knew from Shepard's dangerous reputation not to try talking again on the path to their objective. He was a dangerous man known for acts of extremism towards batarians. Still, his methods were proved effective. Every torture he participated in, every raid he attended, every attack he joined in, had a 100% success rate. The man was a legend; the question was whether it was a legend of terror or success.

After four and a half kilometers of dead silence, the team of eight arrived at a ridge above the batarian bunker. The team was, with the exception of Shepard, rookies and newer recruits. The bunker wasn't expected to hold much more than a science team with a few guards.

As soon as surveillance was completed, and Shepard had scouted out the area as he saw fit, they rapidly descended along the rough hillside. Once at the base, Watashi pulled out his sniper rifle and began to aim it at the two guards at the entrance.

Shepard yanked the rifle away, "You couldn't hit the broad side of the Citadel, shut up and pull out your assault rifle." About half a minute of aiming down the scope yielded Shepard's two muffled shots, both sending bullets whizzing through the brain matter of two very unfortunate batarians.

"That's how you get things done, damn rookie."

The man was living up to the Alliance legend; he was too much of an ass to be promoted, and too valuable of an asset to be discharged.

At the door to the underground bunker, Shepard diligently slaved at the door for a solid thirteen minutes before it creaked open and he entered, followed by alert soldiers.

After dealing with a series of armed guards, the team proceeded deeper inside to eliminate the batarians Shepard had strict orders to capture. Kyle was a coward, the man was afraid of the reputation Shepard had built up to the point that he was willing to let Shepard step outside of Alliance orders.

So far things were going well, little resistance and no casualties. The bunker has three entrances, the one his team had entered in, the one Kyle should be entering about now, and the one 2nd Lieutenant Anton Bogdanov would be leading a team through in seven minutes.

Shepard checked the time on his Head-up Display, Kyle should be in by now. He checked the channel and saw, as expected, no radio contact. Shepard walked down the hallway and felt a slight tremor, located in the general direction Kyle was. But the batarians had no warning! No-

"LIEUTENANT!"

Shepard glanced back to see Henry reaching for him before turning back and seeing an an explosion ripping through the corridors towards him.

Shepard slammed against the wall and fell, panting, on the ground.

"Comm…"

"Is he…"

"Help..."

Shepard's mind began to race, automated bomb? Trap? Something with a timer? Regardless, with the sound that just made they could expect some company very soon.

His vision cleared up and he began to hear normally again, "Lieutenant? I think he's okay."

Shepard shoved away the crowd of rookies and stood up, "Now things get fun."

Without another word, he barreled down the hallway that was now covered in explosions, "You batarian fucks! I'll kill you all!" His team followed behind him, rapidly falling behind their leader.

Shepard opened a door to see an armed batarian pointing a gun at him, "Surren-ugh!"

The batarian never got to finish his sentence; Shepard's shotgun was at the ready and it blew a massive chunk of flesh out of his enemy's torso. Before he could let his shotgun slump, the other batarians in the room began firing on the newcomer. Shepard grabbed the falling batarian's body and held it up as a shield, as soon as the firing ceased and the cooldown began, he shoved the corpse forward and kicked it into the nearest batarian.

Without missing a beat, the crazed human pounced and sank a knife from his belt through the faceplate and into the forehead of the floored batarian. Then, in one swift movement he grabbed the pistol from one of the batarian's waist-it was difficult to tell-and shot an opponent to his left.

With his free hand, Shepard used the knife he had just pulled out of a forehead, and charged his last opponent in the room. A swift tackle slammed the gun out of his enemy's hands and allowed Shepard to deliver one last shot through the helmet of the idiot squirming beneath him.

"Holy shit" someone behind him remarked. Shepard stood up and turned around to see his team finally caught up in the couple of seconds it took him to clear the room. "And that's why I'm in charge," Shepard stated flatly with an arrogant grin on his face.

Shepard charged into the entry hallway for the section the explosion had come from and sure enough, Kyle's team was entirely pinned down. The aroma of burnt flesh was in the air, with a quick surveillance of the situation there were about three or four out of the eight dead, and at least twenty batarians attacking.

Finally the idiotic batarians were noticing Shepard and his team. The immediate reaction on the Alliance force's behalf was to take advantage of the situation and flank the batarians.

Shepard ran across the room and slid to the piece of cover Kyle was ducking behind. Yelling over the gunfire, Shepard managed to ask Kyle, "Kyle! What the hell is happening!? This place is supposed to just be an outpost, not a stronghold!"

Kyle just shook his head and stared at Shepard blankly, the major had obviously succumbed to the mental agony that war so willingly provided. He was clearly not going to be of any help.

Shepard sighed and checked to make sure his weapon hadn't overheated, and then he scanned the room. Roughly twenty batarians, one of his men had fallen and he could now see that there were four dead on Kyle's team. That meant they had already lost five men out of sixteen. The whole situation was shot to hell; all the soldiers who weren't dead were huddled behind what little cover there was.

Shepard sighed and pulled a cigarette out of the compartment he had in his armor, and then pulled down his helmet. If their bullets could get through his shields, it wouldn't mean shit if he didn't have his helmet on. He lit up the smoke and cocked his head back for a moment.

Then he yelled out, "Cover me!" and burst out of cover. Instead of moving towards a more strategic location, or to retreat, he began charging right at the batarians.

Fire from his allies took down six of the bastards, his shotgun took out another four, a grenade took out three, and Shepard's shields fell. Finally within melee range, Shepard pulled out his knife and jammed it into a batarian's chin, whipped it out and caught another in the neck, and finally chose to leave it in the skill of his third victim.

His mind raced and he attempted to calculate the number of them left, only to be interrupted by a bullet racing through his sternum and a right hook to the jaw.

One batarian, probably the leader, lifted Shepard by his throat, exponentially increasing the pressure over each second, shielded by a wall of his allies laying down suppressing fire.

"How sad. Pathetic human. All the efforts of your allies, many of their lives, and you only managed to get off three shots, some fancy knife-play, and a grenade. It'll be my honor to kill you." His voice was smooth and dangerous, like a terrifying lullaby. The batarian cocked his head and continued, "I'm only prolonging this to prove to you how little chance your friends have of managing to make a dent in us. Now then, I'm going to kill you, and I'm going to make sure the last thing you see is my face."

Shepard shook his head as much as the batarian's hands would allow, and managed to speak out in a rasping voice, "You miscounted…"

Shepard's weak hands finally closed on his omni-tool and a grenade exploded; blowing the leader off his feet and disrupting the remaining batarians, who the marines quickly finished off. Shepard struggled to his feet and flipped over their barely conscious leader. "Three shots, some fancy knife-play, and **two** grenades. Don't they teach you batarians math?"

The dying batarian spit in his face and Shepard sighed and wiped it off. "You know, I always found your culture to be quite fascinating. You only consider the corpse desiccated once the eyes have been removed. Very interesting. I won't lie, I'm looking forward to this, but you're lucky it's not something much worse. My techniques have… shall we say, developed, over the course of this war. Well now, let me commence with your special treatment!" The batarian panicked and attempted to grasp at his pistol, but to no avail.

"Tch tch tch… so resistant. What is it the asari say? Embrace eternity? Yes, that'll do quite nicely…"

* * *

Shepard sat on a crate of supplies, wiping the blood off his knife. The medics had succeeded in removing most of the bullets from him, but he had refused to let them deal with the ones that involved more complicated removal. They didn't have the time.

He threw back his head and pulled out a flask, pouring it down his throat, much to the object of one of the newbie idiots on Kyle's team, "Could you please try to act professional, sir?"

Shepard tucked the flask away and responded, "Kid, when you've been in this field of work long enough you realize that this," Shepard tapped the compartment he put the flask in, "goes hand in hand with the profession."

The kid, probably still in his teens, just snorted and walked off.

Shepard sheathed his knife again and stood up, "Alright, the batarians know we're here, they just lost most of their guard force but we need to get in there! Five minutes ago we slaughtered them, and five minutes from now we're going to do it again!"

The marines' initial hesitation was rapidly replaced with the 'ooh-rah' mentality Shepard desired. Time to kill some batarians…

* * *

Shepard led the march down into the corridors, deeper into hell. With a raised fist, he signaled them all to stop and raised his gun. The newly combined teams of all three leaders was much more skilled bow, full of elites and trained men and woman. Anton Bogdanov was one of Shepard's closest friends and they had gone through military training together. It wasn't surprising that he hadn't yet croaked when he joined in the fight.

The team proceeded once Shepard opened his fist again, what he thought he heard was just in his head. The team proceeded unhindered until they finally reached what would undoubtedly be the final battle. Beyond this door was the last bastion of the bunker that they hadn't already raided, and they should be protecting the few scientists who for some reason had a desire to work on this god-forsaken rock in a criminal base. And so Shepard readied his gun, commanded his team to do the same, unsheathed his knife, and opened the door.

The batarians immediately began to fire, but their bullets couldn't break through their shields quickly enough to tide of soldiers charging through the door. It didn't take long for the attack to turn from expected to doomed, they had already lost three more. Harris, Carton, and Lilith, each one of them were elites with families and loved ones.

Over the course of the fight, through splashes of batarian blood and screaming, of the fallen, of the batarians, of the Alliance, and of the alarm system that would never bring any help for the sieged mercenaries, Shepard kept his deadly calm. Through whirling blades and the ring of shots, through the pools of crimson life that he danced through, Shepard kept calm.

"John! Please! We have to retreat!" Anton cried out, with a rapidly heating rifle in his hands.

"Never! On the bloods of our fathers! On the bloods of our sons! Every single one of you swore to uphold the Alliance! I'll be damned if we leave, this battle ends today! This war ends today! To preserve the blood of every man woman and child, we shall spill that of the batarians!"

Anton rolled his eyes, the tricky bastard went to a couple of public speaking classes and he was already able to make one up on the spot while firing into a batarian.

Eventually the Alliance numbers fell to ten, but the batarians were to their wits end. A batarian sent a harpoon gun spiraling into Kenny, but not before he detonated a grenade and blew a few more enemies to bits. Dan took rifle fire as soon as his shields went down, collapsed against a wall and bled out. Private Eniko leaped in front of a series of bullets for Shepard, giving him just enough time to recharge his shields and retaliate.

When the haze of war cleared and everyone in the room lay dead Shepard fell to his knees, threw his helmet off, and let his head limply drop. "Heh. It's finally over. Two long years. The war is over." Shepard blindly rambled on, ignoring the blood that soaked his leg-plates. "I thought I'd feel relieved. Satisfied. Peace." Shepard's voice darkened, "I feel nothing. After being nothing but a soldier for two years, fighting every battle to the last man, exterminating my enemies, hunting them across the galaxy," Shepard raised his head to look at the gore before him and hollowly echoed, "I feel nothing."

Anton collapsed against a wall in the corner, "John I… what the hell did we just do!? This isn't right! We killed them all! The batarians, the Alliance, the scientists, we butchered them! They'll discharge us when we get home! We're going straight to hell! Jesus, man!"

Shepard rose silently and took a few solemn steps towards the door of the room the remnants of the batarians were certainly hiding behind. No batarian with a gun would try and hide behind there, they were scum, but they hated humans enough to not turn down a chance to slaughter them.

Anton barged in front of Shepard's way, "We can't do this, we have to turn ourselves in, let the Alliance finish up with the batarians!"

"Out… out of my way. Now." Shepard menacingly droned as he regained control of himself.

"Shepard, we've done enough! Look around! We massacred everyone! All this in the name of your stupid revenge? Shepard these people had names, they had families!"

"Their names were of traitors, their families, of killers. Move. Now."

"Shepard I-"

"Move. This is your final warning." Shepard lifted his pistol in a trembling hand to Anton's head.

"Wh-what? Shepard, you'll never get away with this!"

"You were purposefully and deliberately obstructing a mission. I already have. I implore you, move."

"No. Shepard I-"

A gunshot rang through the air, and Anton's corpse slumped to the floor, joining the massing of that day's victims.

The rest of the team, now brought down from seven to six, was already scattered across the room. They were unconscious and suffered some injuries, but nothing some medi-gel wouldn't fix up. They would live to tell this, just not the last part.

Shepard opened the last door to see a group of batarians cowering in the corner.

"You... do not deserve to live." Shepard spoke in a monotone voice.

One of the batarians stepped forward, "Please, we can offer intelligence to the Allian-" Shepard cut his offer short with a slash through the vocal cords. "Nothing you can offer is good enough. You will perish here."

Another batarian, this time with lighter skin, attempted to bargain for his life, "Please! We have important information! We just don't want to-"

Shepard fired a shot into the speaking batarian, "Perhaps… Offer me anything."

"Whatever you need! Our lives-"

"Anything I want."

"It's yours, but you have to ensure that we live!" Shepard grinned and pulled something out of his belt.

"I want my life back, you son of a bitch!"

Shepard threw a grenade into the mass of batarians and detonated it.

Once the fire cleared, he turned around and began to walk the way he came.

* * *

"Lieutenant Shepard, I know that what happened down on Torfan didn't end up the way the brass hoped it would, but frankly, we're amazed. We're promoting you to the rank of commander and, if you'll accept, we want to enroll you in the N7 program." Some idiotic politician who had never stepped foot on the battlefield continued to drone on about honors and heroics. When his mouth finally stopped moving Shepard averted his gaze from straight forward to the bloated dumbass before him.

"Do you ever stop talking, you fat pig? You drone on about honors and medals. Torfan was hell, not a fun little camp trip where I roasted smores, fetched something for ya, and came back smilin'. Anton, Henry, Watashi, Dan, Harris, Carton, Lilith, Eniko, Kenny, Kyle, Mikayla, Dorina, Maiara, Carry, Lakshmi, Rada, Teodora, Rumen, Josif, Fadia, Antonij, Yuval, and Debora. Those were the names of the twenty-three people besides me who were on Torfan. But they weren't 'exceptional'. Kyle went insane, Josif is crippled, Henry and Rumen retired, then Antonij killed himself. But of course they aren't exceptional. They were just the soldiers who risked their lives for you, instead of massacred for you. And then of course, there are the names of the people who will be forgotten as soon as the survivors have been acknowledged. They gave their lives for this mission. Four died in a surprise explosion, one from the first attack, three sacrificed themselves, nine died in battle, and I shot the last one in the face for being compassionate. But you don't care about that either? I'm still your golden boy because I did the mission to your specifications. I hope you burn in hell you piece of human shit."

Shepard got out of his chair, picked up his coat and opened the door, "I'll be at N7 camp at o'-six hundred hours."

* * *

"Congratulations, Commander Shepard, you've graduated the N7 academy. I've got to say, Commander, we've never had a graduate as young as 23. You should be honored, now please take this certificate."

Shepard, with ragged hair and in his civilian clothes, strode up to the stage in beautiful Rio de Janeiro and shook the administrator's hand, "Thank you very much sir." He took the certificate and grinned, "Now go fuck yourself. I quit." Shepard strode off the stage, his grin still plastered across his face.

* * *

Jack just stared at Shepard expectantly the whole time he was talking, never interrupting, never saying a word. Once he finished, he realized this unusual occurrence. "You uh… have never been this quiet." Jack snapped out of it and sat up straight on her cot, "That was interesting, Shep. You're still a boy scout, but its nice to know if I'm a good girl I can grow up to be as much of a pansy as you. Shepard chuckled and walked back to his cabin, he would never forget those days, but he was thankful every day he wasn't there.

* * *

Okay, I hope you enjoyed. Please review.


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